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Books Quotes

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Books Quotes

“-E non c'è niente di peggio di non sapere perchè si ha paura... - continuò il Maestro. - Voglio dire: sono semplici fumetti. Storie illustrate per ragazzi. Che male possono fare? -Non lo so. - è come aver paura di un libro, di una sinfonia, di un quadro o di un monologo a teatro. Si può aver paura di queste cose? - Credo di no, - risposi - E invece sì, - replicò lui. - è proprio di queste cose che si deve avere paura, perché sono incontrollabili. Sono libere.”

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Book:Lo spacciatore di fumetti
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“The nobles had made reading unpopular, as it showed that one couldn’t afford to buy spells or magical devices, since one had to get knowledge to do things the ordinary way; even if this view held little logic, the king himself was known to insult readers as “bookfaces” or “unable to think for themselves, so they need to spout what others have said,” and these opinions became popular, as did most views expressed by the king or his son.”

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Book:Dysmorphic Kingdom
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“Majina ya vitabu yanapaswa kuchaguliwa kwa mantiki na kwa makini ya hali ya juu mno, kwa sababu ni miongoni mwa vitu vya kwanza watu wanavyoviona na kuvisoma. Watu wakivutiwa na jina la kitabu, au mwandishi; kitu cha pili watakachovutiwa kuangalia ni dibaji, kusudi wasome muhtasari wa kitabu kizima. Kwa hiyo dibaji inapaswa iandikwe kwa mantiki na kwa makini ileile iliyotumika katika kuchagua jina la kitabu. Lengo la jina la kitabu na dibaji ni kuishawishi hadhira kusoma kitabu na kukifurahia.”

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Author:Enock Maregesi
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“Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song. Out of the dead compost and the inert slag they breed a song that contaminates. I see this other race of individuals ransacking the universe, turning everything upside down, their feet always moving in blood and tears, their hands always empty, always clutching and grasping for the beyond, for the god out of reach: slaying everything within reach in order to quiet the monster that gnaws at their vitals. I see that when they tear their hair with the effort to comprehend, to seize this forever unattainable, I see that when they bellow like crazed beasts and rip and gore, I see that this is right, that there is no other path to pursue. A man who belongs to this race must stand up on the high place with gibberish in his mouth and rip out his entrails. It is right and just, because he must! And anything that falls short of this frightening spectacle, anything less shuddering, less terrifying, less mad, less intoxicated, less contaminating, is not art. The rest is counterfeit. The rest is human. The rest belongs to life and lifelessness.”

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Book:Tropic of Cancer
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“Edward genially enough did not disagree with what I said, but he didn't seem to admit my point, either. I wanted to press him harder so I veered close enough to the ad hominem to point out that his life—the life of the mind, the life of the book collector and music lover and indeed of the gallery-goer, appreciator of the feminine and occasional boulevardier—would become simply unlivable and unthinkable in an Islamic republic. Again, he could accede politely to my point but carry on somehow as if nothing had been conceded. I came slowly to realize that with Edward, too, I was keeping two sets of books. We agreed on things like the first Palestinian intifadah, another event that took the Western press completely off guard, and we collaborated on a book of essays that asserted and defended Palestinian rights. This was in the now hard-to-remember time when all official recognition was withheld from the PLO. Together we debated Professor Bernard Lewis and Leon Wieseltier at a once-celebrated conference of the Middle East Studies Association in Cambridge in 1986, tossing and goring them somewhat in a duel over academic 'objectivity' in the wider discipline. But even then I was indistinctly aware that Edward didn't feel himself quite at liberty to say certain things, while at the same time feeling rather too much obliged to say certain other things. A low point was an almost uncritical profile of Yasser Arafat that he contributed to Interview magazine in the late 1980s.”

ArtMusicFeminismBooksDebateMiddle EastPalestineIntellectualismCambridgeTheocracyIsraeli Palestinian ConflictPalestiniansArafat1980sEdward SaidAd Hominem1986IntifadaMiddle Eastern StudiesInterview MagazineBernard LewisIslamic RepublicFirst IntifadaLeon Wieseltier
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“I love art almost as much as I love books. It’s hard to explain the way I feel when I see a beautiful painting. It’s a combination of scared, happy, excited, and sad all at once, like a soft light that glows in my chest and stomach for a few seconds. Sometimes it takes my breath away, which I didn’t know was a real thing until I stood in front of this painting. I used to think it was just some saying in pop songs about stupid people in love. I had a similar feeling when I read an Emily Dickinson poem. I was too excited and threw my book across the room. It was so good that it made me angry. People would think I'm nuts if I try to explain it to them, so I don't.”

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Book:I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
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“نحن لا يمكن أن نجبر فناناً على أن يعمل بخلاف ما تمليه عليه طبيعته وإلا كنا نجبره على التصنع والتكلف، وهذا شر لا يمكن أن يؤذي الأدب والفن، والمسألة في غاية البساطة مع ذلك، فإذا كنا نتيح للفنان حريته كاملة، فنحن أيضاً أحرار في تقييمنا للأعمال الفنية، فلا نمنح تقديرنا إلا لمن يقدم لنا العمل الفني الكامل، وهو العمل الفني الرفيع فنياً النافع إنسانياً واجتماعياً”

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Book:ملامح داخلية
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“The books that lined the walls from floor to ceiling sat there quietly, never calling out for attention or advertising themselves with gaudy covers. But even if they appeared to be nothing more than unadorned paper boxes from the outside, they exuded a beauty equal to anything created by a sculptor or potter. Even though the meaning of the words printed on their pages was so profound it could never have been contained by those boxes, the books never let on to their depths. They waited patiently until someone picked them up and opened their covers.”

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Book:Mina's Matchbox
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“All words are borrowed. The beauty of writing is how they flow through us and arrange themselves as something new but familiar. We can be unique and belong at the same time. In moments of confusion, anger, and sadness, words lend comfort, letting us know that someone else has navigated the same tempestuous tides and survived.”

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Book:The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
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“Morrie.. had developed his own culture - long before he got sick. He read books to find new ideas for his classes, visited with colleagues, kept up with old students, wrote letters to distant friends. He took more time eating and looking at nature.. He had created a cocoon of human activities - conversation, interaction, affection - and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl.”

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Book:Tuesdays With Morrie: An old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson
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“I've always found old bookstores exciting. Whenever I'm in a city that's new to me, I immedicately look through the telephone directory for BOOKS, USED AND RARE. Book dealers send me their catalogs, and I read them as carefully as I would a letter from an old friend, never knowing what treasure I might find. Sometimes the catalogs contain printed material other than books, such as old photographs, newspapers, pamphlets, postcards, and letters.”

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Book:At Her Majesty's Request: An African Princess in Victorian England
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“So maybe the Reading Room is magic because books really are magic. I read once that books bend both space and time, and the more books you have in one place, the more space and time will bend and twist and fold over itself. I'm not sure if that's true but it feels true. Of course, I read that in a book, and maybe the book was just bragging.”

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Book:The Ogress and the Orphans
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“Stories have no beginning and no end, only doors through which one may enter them. A story is an endless labyrinth of words, images and spirits, conjured up to show us the invisible truth about ourselves. A story is, after all, a conversation between the narrator and the reader, and just as narrators can only relate as far as their ability will permit, so too readers can only read as far as what is already written in their souls.”

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Book:El laberinto de los espíritus
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“In the world where a million books are being published every year in the United States alone, every book reviewer is my hero! But even more important, every reviewer shapes the culture’s narrative. Reviewers get to decide what’s important. It’s not just the bad reviews — I hated those socks! — the good reviews have as much weight, if not more. Reviewers get to pick what’s the next IT thing! That’s power. …use it wisely…”

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Book:Harvest
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“A writer gets to live yet another life every time he or she creates a new story.”

WritingStoriesReadingLiteratureFictionCreativityBooksStorytellingWritersShort StoryCreative ProcessPower Of WordsCreative WritingWriteAuthorsWriting AdviceCreative PeopleWriting FictionWriting CraftOn WritingStory WritingWriting StyleAspiring WritersQuotes On WritingFundamentals Of WritingFundamentals Of Creative WritingTips On Writing
Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“Writing a story is like going on a date—you will spoil it if you aren't living in the moment.”

WritingStoriesReadingLiteratureFictionCreativityBooksStorytellingWritersShort StoryCreative ProcessPower Of WordsCreative WritingWriteAuthorsWriting AdviceCreative PeopleWriting FictionWriting CraftOn WritingStory WritingWriting StyleAspiring WritersQuotes On WritingFundamentals Of WritingFundamentals Of Creative WritingTips On WritingFocus On Writing
Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“If certain aspect needs to be inconsistent, it must better be consistently inconsistent throughout the story.”

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Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“Be a good reader first if you wish to become a good writer.”

WritingArtStoriesReadingLiteratureFictionBooksStorytellingWritersShort StoryCreative ProcessPower Of WordsCreative WritingWriteAuthorsWriting AdviceWriting FictionWriting CraftOn WritingStory WritingWriting StyleAspiring WritersArts And HumanitiesQuotes On WritingFundamentals Of WritingFundamentals Of Creative WritingTips On Writing
Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“Tell a story in fewer and simpler words.”

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Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“Turn those deep feelings and obsessions of your heart into captivating pieces of literature.”

WritingStoriesArtistReadingLiteratureFictionCreativityBooksStorytellingWritersShort StoryCreative ProcessPower Of WordsCreative WritingWriteAuthorsWriting AdviceCreative PeopleWriting FictionWriting CraftOn WritingStory WritingWriting From The HeartWriting StyleAspiring WritersArts And HumanitiesQuotes On WritingFundamentals Of WritingFundamentals Of Creative WritingTips On Writing
Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“Don’t interrupt when your characters take a flight of their own.”

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Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“Don’t break the rules when you haven’t fully figured them out yet.”

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Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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“If you think there is no time to write now, there will never be.”

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Book:On Writing Wonderfully: The Craft of Creative Fiction Writing
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